Dayton Daily News

Disaster Drill to Start for Base Teams ; a Mock Plane Crash Will Be One of the Key Events in a Week of Exercises On and Off Wright-Patterson.

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE -- Base officials are to conduct an off-base disaster drill today with approximately 20 civilian emergency response teams. The exercise will involve a mock C-5 Galaxy transport jet crash at Enon Sand and Gravel in Springfield. Aircraft parts and buses will be used to simulate wreckage.

Dayton Heart Downplays Kettering Announcement ; Ceo Points to 'Collaborative Model' Dayton Heart has Created. Premier Plans 'Significant Investment.'

Kettering Memorial Hospital's five-story addition of 48 heart- care beds can't compare with the stand-alone Dayton Heart Hospital, Dayton Heart CEO Chad Carpenter said. "We will continue to be the only true heart hospital in Dayton," Carpenter said Wednesday in a prepared statement. Kettering's planned $45 million Benjamin and Marian Schuster Heart Hospital "appears to merely be a 'wing' of the existing facility using existing ER and surgery suites, not really a new heart hospital," he said.

New Effort Aims to Give Kids a Guiding Light ; the Mentoring Collaborative Seeks Adults to Help 240 Kids Steer Their Lives in the Right Direction.

DAYTON -- Mentors helped Willis "Bing" Davis achieve acclaim as an artist and educator. Mentors helped Mark Baker reach basketball greatness at Ohio State University in the early 1990s.

Sinclair Extends President's Contract ; Steven Lee Johnson Will Donate His Raise to the College's Foundation to Help the Scholarship Fund.

DAYTON -- Sinclair Community College trustees have extended President Steven Lee Johnson's contract through September 2009 and have given him a 1.5 percent raise, Sinclair officials announced Wednesday. Johnson said he will donate the raise to the Sinclair Foundation for use in student scholarships.

Habitat for Humanity's 'Blitz' Yields New Home for Troy Family ; Thanks to Dozens of Volunteers, a House Goes Up in Five Days Instead of Months.

TROY -- Halfway through the national five-day Habitat for Humanity Homebuilders Blitz, the 4-bedroom, 1 bath, 1,100-square- foot home at 45 S. Cedar St. was all but done. "The final inspection is today (Wednesday). All that is left is laying the carpet," said Jake Minesinger of Keystone Homes, which planned the blitz with the Miami County Homebuilders Association and Miami County Habitat for Humanity.

Local Headlines

Clark State power failure sends final exams downtown SPRINGFIELD -- Students at Clark State Community College's Leffel Lane campus had more than the usual stress to deal with Wednesday when a power failure caused final exams to be moved to the downtown campus.

Finding the Right (Read Quickest) Route Into Downtown From the East ; Four 'Dayton Daily News' Reporters Try Variety of Routes.

Route 1 Driver: Cathy Mong, Staff Writer

Deal Drops Spending Proposal From Ballot ; the Blackwell-Backed Tel Will Be Replaced by a Less-Stringent Measure That Is Not a Constitutional Amendment.

COLUMBUS -- It was once the centerpiece of Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell's campaign for governor. Now the proposed Tax Expenditure Limitation constitutional amendment to restrict state and local government spending is about to become a historical footnote.

City Sells Land for New Dayton School ; a 20-Acre Site in Wesleyan Hill Will Become an Elementary School in About Two Years.

DAYTON-- The site of a former dense and crime riddled apartment complex in the Wesleyan Hill neighborhood will become the home of a school. The City Commission on Wednesday agreed to sell 20 acres off King's Highway to the Dayton Board of Education for $5,000.

Paw Walkers to Get People to Take Steps with Pets

DAYTON -- Looking for some lunchtime activity that won't put on the pounds? Then get off your duff and take a walk with Ruff -- or whatever your dog's name is -- and get a chance to win a year's supply of Iams dog food to boot. That's the plan from Five Rivers MetroParks and the Humane Society of Greater Dayton. The two have teamed up for a new program this year called Paw Walkers, where people can bring their own dog or borrow an adoptable pooch from the humane society for a quarter- mile tr...

Region Told to Brace for Tide of Layoffs, Job Losses ; Job Center Officials Say 9,000 Jobs in the Region Are at Risk Before the End of the Year.

DAYTON-- A tidal wave of layoffs is building in Montgomery County that will wash across the entire region, causing as many as 9,000 lost jobs, say officials at the county Job Center. Seven plant closings and shift eliminations will end more than 2,600 jobs by the end of the month alone, said Lucius Plant, workforce development coordinator for the Job Center.

Two Will Get Literary Peace Prize On Nov. 5

DAYTON -- A local volunteer group that seeks to carry forward the theme of Dayton as a place of peacemaking has established a Dayton Literary Peace Prize and will award the first two prizes Nov. 5 at the Schuster Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Dayton. The awards created by Dayton: A Peace Process will honor two writers -- one in fiction and one in nonfiction categories -- whose work focuses on the messages of peace, organizers said. Each prize will carry an honorarium of $10,000.

Experts Say Exposing Wrongdoing in the Workplace Requires Strategy

Is your employer violating safety, environmental or health standards, or engaged in criminal activity? As the Enron scandal makes clear, it's up to individual employees to blow the whistle on corporate or government wrongdoing. But first get smart -- not righteous -- if you want to protect yourself and your job, legal experts say.

Beloved Montessori Principal O'ryan Retires, Leaves Legacy of Love, Learning

This is one of my most indelible memories of Franklin Montessori School Principal Judy O'Ryan: She is dressed as Snow White, complete with frizzy black wig, and a young pupil leans over her prostrate form to kiss her and awaken her from her deep slumber. This is a woman, in short, who would do anything to promote reading and literacy. And it's vintage O'Ryan: Engaged, funny, unconventional, always finding new ways to connect with the kids.

Girl's Second Graduation Also Full of Emotion

When Sarah Vesey walked across the stage at the Nutter Center this past weekend and picked up her high school diploma from Beavercreek High School, it was a bittersweet moment, she said. Sarah, 17, was thinking of her father, Les Vesey, and the earlier graduation ceremony staged in his honor on Feb. 22.